The problem of securely affixing carpets and other floor coverings to floors and wall coverings such as draperies to walls without damaging the floors and the walls as the case may be, has been a long existing one. The most widespread means known and used in the art for laying carpets today is the use of a carpet nailing or tack strip which is nailed to the floor with several tacks driven through the strip to be exposed about the top surface of the strip when the strip is securely attached to the floor. This strip has the effect of permanently affixing the carpet or other floor covering to the floor. Even where the carpet is removed the removal process is not an easy one and the result is usually a damaged floor which has to be replaced or covered by other coverings. Also with use of this carpet nailing or tack strip, the carpet or other floor covering cannot be easily removed for cleaning and replaced routinely by one doing housework on a day-to-day basis. This routine removal of certain carpets occurs particularly in a bathroom or kitchen where the carpets or other floor coverings in these areas are quite apt to become soiled and require frequent cleanings. Usually when carpets are placed in areas such as the bathrooms or kitchens, such floor coverings are put down in a manner that they can be easily removed. As a result the carpets or other floor coverings in these areas are not securely attached to the floor and as such there is a constant effort made to keep the floor covering straightened our in certain areas along the walls of bathroom or kitchen areas by placing certain large objects at various strategic points around the room to provide a means of keeping the carpets affixed to the floors in a straightened out position.
There have been various carpet fasteners, other than the carpet nailing strip, which have been designed to securely affix carpeting or other floor coverings to floors; but these fastening devices have often resulted in large protrusion from the wall, to which the device is affixed, and into the living area of the room. An example of such a fastener is disclosed and taught by U.S. Pat. No. 317,824 issued to McFadden et al (now expired). In that reference a carpet fastener was claimed which had two sections which were attached to each other with nails or screws and which had the carpet or other floor covering extended between the two sections with the screws or nails also extending through the carpet. The lower section A of the McFadden fastener has a section of the carpet wrapped around it before the carpet comes into contact with the securing nails or screws. Once the carpeting has been wrapped around the section A of the fastener, the two sections are fastened by means of the screws or nails and the entire fastening device is attached to the floor by means of nails or other screws. By wrapping the carpeting around the section A of the McFadden device, a larger amount of carpeting is needed to allow for this wrapping than is usually needed to cover a floor using the tack strip or the fastener taught herein. As illustrated in the McFadden reference, particularly FIG. 1, the McFadden fastener takes up quite a bit of room in protruding from the wall and extending several inches or maybe even one foot into the living area of the room. As stated the McFadden fastener is permanently attached to the floor of the room, resulting in damage to the floor areas as is the case with the present day carpet nailing strips. This means of attachment necessarily limits the possibilities for decorating and redecorating a room with floor coverings, since whenever a carpet is removed from the floor new floor coverings must be put down to cover the damaged area of floor where the fastening device has been affixed. While the McFadden fastener as illustrated in FIGS. 4 and 5 may be attached to the wall of the room, it is clear that where the fastener is so attached, there will still be a large protrusion from the wall into the living area. Further, it is not clear as to how secure the fastener and carpet will be in the area of a' and B' (FIG. 4). It appears that a filler of some sort will be required between the area a' and the floor to allow the fastener and the carpet to lie level in this area. Even with the McFadden fastener being attached to the wall the carpet fastener must either always be in use to secure carpets or if not in use for that purpose, both sections of the apparatus would need to be connected to each other and secured to the floor or wall, resulting in the above described protrusion from the wall regardless of whether the apparatus is in use or not. This is the case because there have been no provisions made in the McFadden apparatus for displaying a decorative carpet fastener, in and of itself even when the fastener is not in use for securing carpets or other floor coverings.